


I'm glad it's you (whatever this is)

by kyrieanne



Series: Found Series [2]
Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3633237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrieanne/pseuds/kyrieanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if half way through LBD Darcy found a copy of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s mostly forgotten about novel, and read it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my story, "Whatever this is (I'm glad it's with you)," which tells Lizzie's point of view.

William Darcy only lies to Lizzie Bennet once.

It's the day she discovers he knows about the book. That night she knocks on his door, and they sit by the pool under silver moonlight. It tinges her skin blue and he imagines she is a creature from another world. She's determined not to let the book define her. She’s adamant about it.

_“Me either,”_ he says, _“I’m in charge of my own heart.”_

That - that right there - is the lie.

***

Darcy thinks his book-self is an insufferable bore.

 

Upon discovering the novel he wants to lock it in a drawer, and he wants to forget about it. He tells himself it’s a hoax or cruel joke. In the book, his mother dies before the story even starts, and in real life, Darcy only discovers the book because of her death.

 

Is his story supposed to start now - after she is gone?

 

 

What is he supposed to do with that?

 

Fitzwilliam’s mother was regulated to a single sentence, and Darcy won’t do that to his own. 

 

Yet, his mother leaves the book for him as part of her will, and she gives no explanation. There’s no note--no words from the grave to explain _why_ let alone _how_. But Darcy knows his mother. Anne Darcy did everything with intent. If she gave him the book it was important to her. She believed in it, and she wanted him to know it existed. Perhaps she imagined he might come to believe in it himself.

So Darcy does what he knows to do.

He dissects it. He studies the text. He reads all the literature on it. He travels to England and interviews scholars. He uses a fake name because he doesn’t want the curious looks. And at the end of every interview he asks his most important question:   _what does this book mean?_

The metaphysics of _how_ this happened are somehow less important. He doesn’t get tripped up on the sheer impossibleness of the whole thing. Rather, he wants to understand _why_ ; somewhere in his brain he believes that if he can understand the _why_ then he might understand the death of his parents too. And if he can understand _that_ then he might salvage what he’s supposed to do with the rest of his life.

He feels a little like James Bond, or at least as close as he'll ever come to feeling like James Bond. He has the fleeting thought that it’d make a cool story:  literary spy hunts down explanation about why characters start becoming real people. But Darcy stops himself before he imagines too far because the _how_ is too fantastical if he dwells upon it. The _why_ feels like a puzzle he can actually solve, but still sometimes when he thinks about the whole mess his head hurts and he has to go lie down in a dark room for a while.

After all the research he only comes to one firm conclusion--Fitzwilliam Darcy is boring.

Insufferable levels of boring.

He’s missing from half the novel, and when he does appear on the page he’s either making a pompous speech or writing impassioned letters at inappropriate times. He’s obsessed with buying his sister a piano. _(William asks Gigi if she wants a piano, and she throws a magazine at him.)_ The conclusion? William Darcy is _not_ Fitzwilliam Darcy.

He hopes, prays, and begs it not to be true.

But it isn’t his character that keeps him up at night. It’s Elizabeth Bennet. The woman Fiztwilliam Darcy falls in love with. Darcy isn’t the romantic hero in someone else’s love story, and he’s not interested in becoming one. While the character of Elizabeth is charming, Darcy can’t imagine an in-flesh version that he finds charming enough to sacrifice his own agency.

But then he goes to a wedding.

***

When Darcy arrives at the Gibson wedding he wants to leave immediately. It has nothing to do with the book. He’d just rather be at home.

But the Gibsons are friends of Caroline and Bing, and he is their guest. So he puts on a suit and promises himself that at the end of the night he’d indulge in a glass of the scotch he brought Bing has a host gift. It’s a 60 year-old bottle that reminds Darcy of his father, which thankfully doesn’t ruin his appreciation for scotch.

The late Mr. Darcy used to sneak teenage William sips when Anne Darcy wasn’t looking. Those cloak-and-dagger drinks of scotch gave Darcy his first taste of secrets, and he’s loved them ever since.

There was something about a secret that appealed to young William Darcy. It belonged to you and only you. Darcy might have many things in life, but despite his family's wealth little was truly _his_. He attended his father’s alma mater and was friends with the children of his mother’s friends. When Gigi was born Darcy tried to claim her, calling her _his_ sister, but his mother admonished him gently, “A person can’t belong to someone else, Will.”

His future didn’t even belong to him. He didn’t get to have secret ambitions. Prep school. University. MBA. Pemberley Digital. It was laid out like a map, and everyone knew it.

A secret, he realized, was the only thing that could truly be his.

The scotch was Darcy’s first secret, and it was one he shared with his father. He remembers the way his father slung his arm around Darcy’s shoulders the first time he choked back a glass.

“You’ll get used to it. Every man needs a go-to drink,” Mr. Darcy said, “Mine’s scotch. You’ll figure yours out eventually.”

Teenage William proudly told his father _his_ drink was going to be scotch too, and the older man laughed loud and long.

“If it works out that way I’ll toast you on your wedding day.”

That never happened because _(as the story goes...Darcy says that once after he finds the book and he flinches)_ Mr. Darcy and his wife died when their car went off a bridge on the way to the opera. Darcy was twenty, and Gigi huddled in his bed for months afterward. He transferred schools and moved back to California. During the day he worked on his MBA and at night he helped Gigi with her French. They sold the estate and settled into a more practical apartment in the city. He moved through the steps stoically and practically because someone had to, and if the choice is between himself and Gigi Darcy will always put his sister first.

But when they packed up the house Darcy and Gigi discovered secrets kept by their parents.

Anne Darcy had dyed her hair. They find boxes of it beneath her vanity.

“How did I not know?” Gigi burst into tears sitting on the bathroom floor, crosslegged, and surrounded by the drug store dyes. It turns out Anne didn’t even want her hair dresser to know she was going gray.

There are smaller secrets. Their father kept pictures of a pregnant Anne in the top drawer of his desk, and both of them were pack rats. The attic was a mausoleum of clutter. Boxes of debris from their childhoods carefully catalogued by their parents for prosperity. Gigi cried happy tears as she dug through boxes.

“They really loved us, Will. Didn’t they?”

They did. He never doubted; love, he thinks, should never be a secret.  

But there were other things to be uncovered.

His father had affairs. Darcy finds the emails to a half dozen women when he goes through his father’s office. The first one is a surprise, and at first he is confused by the intimate nature of his father’s correspondence. It’s not graphic, but still there is a confidential nature to the emails. He tells the woman about unbidden dreams and hopes. It startles him that no where in the emails to Beatrice or Alice or Nancy is there any mention of Mr. Darcy’s actual life:  his children, his wife, or his company.

He sits in front of that computer all night, digging compulsively through years of email, and he starts to see a pattern. There was a version of his father in those emails that Darcy had never encountered. It was a deeply unhappy man who yearned to walk away. He spoke of freedom and throwing off the yoke of responsibility. And as he read Darcy could only reach one inconceivable conclusion:  the father he knew was a caricature.

In truth, Mr. Darcy had been selfish.

He sat at his father's desk even after all the emails were read. In the blue glow of the computer he realized that secrets have weight. Ownership could be a burden. If you’re the only one who knows then it’s up to you carry the truth alone and that changes you. You either collapse or you grow stronger.

When it comes to the book-his mother’s secret- he has a much easier time carrying that.

Darcy doesn’t stay up at night contemplating what the book means for his existence. His whole life has been dictated to him; this time it’s simply bound up between two covers.

_(An aside: The jacket art for Fitzwilliam Darcy always depicts him with pomodoro hair and a bubble butt. He does not understand how that keeps happening.)_

After his trip to England he locks the book away in his personal security deposit box. He tries to forget it. He tells himself it’s a coincidence. His mother must have named him and Gigi after the characters because she loved the novel. The rest are eerie coincidences, but that is it.

Except then George Wickham happens, and Darcy learns something else about secrets.

They’re lonely.

Gigi won’t talk to him afterwards. She wants nothing to do with him. She blames him for even testing George in the first place.

It’s then that he flees to Bing’s new home. The book is the first thing he packs, and as he throws shirts and ties on top of it he makes a promise to himself:  if he ever meets Elizabeth Bennet he’ll walk away.

He is done living a life dictated by anyone else, authorial or otherwise.

***

 

He has his arms around her before she says her name, and when she does he stumbles.

“Lizzie as in Elizabeth?”

“That’s the idea.”

She sets her chin and holds her eyes at his shoulder. He stiffens. He has to force himself to breath in and out.

_This_ couldn’t be Elizabeth Bennet. His brain stutters. It can’t be her.

 

She’s not wearing an empire waist dress.  Rather she’s wearing something black with a neckline low enough for him to see the line of her cleavage. Darcy shuts his eyes. He should not be thinking about Elizabeth Bennet’s breasts. It wasn’t proper. _This,_ he thinks, _this is why Fitzwilliam Darcy is such a bore; he uses the word proper in his own internal monologue._

__

His hand flexes against the small of her back and there she is beneath his palm. She’s warm and alive and real. His arm falls against her side as she breathes in and out. He follows her lead.

The Elizabeth Bennet of Darcy's imagination is a sly, teasing character dripping with charm. _This_ girl was far from the creature in the novel. She’s just as uncomfortable about their dance as him. He considers if it might be a coincidence, but then he remembers Wickham and he grinds his teeth.

She must hear him because her head jerks up. Their eyes connect and it isn’t magical. It’s mortifying, and Darcy has to cough into his shoulder to keep the blush from creeping up his neck. He wants to drop his arms settled on her waist and _run_.

Bing believes in love at first sight, but in that moment Darcy can’t think of anything more terrible than this moment. This isn’t _love_ at first sight. It’s something closer to a sinking realization that whatever happens next is inevitable.

She asks him a few polite questions and he answers with one-word answers. He barely hears her. There’s a sound in his mind like waves breaking against rocks on repeat. Usually Gigi is the dramatic one, but he would literally rather throw himself off a cliff than be here in this moment dancing with Elizabeth Bennet.

And then the song is over and she drops away from him and he exhales a sigh of relief he knows she hears. She doesn’t look at him as she walks away, and Darcy has never been so relieved. Later when Bing brings her up Darcy tells him the truth:  Elizabeth Bennet is not enough to tempt him.

She’s not enough to tempt him to believe in stories.

***

After the Gibson wedding it occurs to him that he could just leave. He could opt out. But then he considers the destruction this story has already done to his family. He thinks of his mother and Gigi, and he needs to know why. What is the point of all of this?

So he stays not to fall in love with Elizabeth Bennet, but for himself.

***

He discovers the videos on accident.

After the wedding he rereads the book and takes copious notes on the sequence of events. Next to each one he draws a box to check off. A few social engagements, time spent watching Bing fall for Jane _(that, Darcy decides, is entirely real so he feels little guilt about keeping the truth from his best friend)_ , and a proposal gone wrong. That’s all he needs to do. He knows things will be a little different; this isn’t regency England. But the novel has played out on its own so far. All he has to do is play his part and at the end he’ll have the answers he seeks. After this he can finally live life on his own terms.  

When he finishes the book he goes for a bike ride. He likes the long stretch of road before him, and when it bends, curves wide and steep, that is his favorite. He likes to be able to look up and see the path in front of him. It quiets his mind.

But today it doesn’t because he keeps returning to the subject of Elizabeth Bennet; who is she? He feels an odd intimacy with her even though he knows it’s not shared. He knows her without having really ever talked to her. It’s not comfortable.

When he gets home he does a search for Elizabeth Bennet, and buried a few pages back on Google’s results is a link to her videos. Maybe he doesn’t know everything after all. Maybe there is more to her than what is on the page. So he presses play instinctually and his feet push back, the chair scraping on the floor, when she starts talking.

It’s Episode 9, titled Single and Happyish. She looks at him from his computer screen and she’s talking to him. There’s a lot to take in:  her articulate defense of singleness, the playful relationship with Charlotte Lu, her clear frustration with her mother, and the way she stares right into the camera with an honesty and humor he knows he could never muster.

But the thing he sees with startlingly clarity is the fact that Elizabeth Bennet does not want anyone choosing her life for her.

***

There are days Darcy forgets about the book and Elizabeth Bennet. Well, not whole days but whole parts of days. He’s got other things going on:  running Pemberley Digital, trying to get Gigi to talk to him, and his supposed holiday with Bing and Caroline. He may not be the main character in this story - he may only be the romantic hero - but he refuses to allow himself to become a two-dimensional archetype.

What’s missing from the novel are the nights he lies awake and alone worrying about his sister and wondering if he will someday become his father. Someday will he be that selfish? He always wanted to be like his father, is it too late to change direction?

There are so many things the novel misses out on:  the nights he and Bing stay up late playing pool and the afternoon Caroline lets a bird into the house and they spend hours trying to get it out. Board meetings for Pemberley Digitial that leave him excited for the future. Meals and conversations and memories that belong only to him. Books, he decides, miss out on so many of the good things in life because they aren’t considered important to the plot.  Not everything has to fit into the arc of a story to be good, he decides.   

But on the days of her videos post Darcy can’t push his thoughts of her away. She’s so vivid there on his computer screen. Slowly, they’re making their way through this story. Beside the check marks he begins to note the tiny differences between Elizabeth Bennet on paper and Elizabeth Bennet through a camera lens. In the book, Elizabeth Bennet is sly and teasing; in the videos, she’s sarcastic and honest. He doesn’t know why he keeps track of the differences, but he does and decides not to think too hard about it. When he looks at the inked in notes he tells himself he’s got this.

But then she comes to Netherfield.

There she is in the flesh and he’s back in that moment they first danced. He’s caught off guard by the realness of her:  the upturn of her mouth and quick narrowing of her eyes. Her hair brushes against him when she passes by too closely in the kitchen and he tucks his chin. He doesn’t know what to do. From a distance Elizabeth Bennet was a character, but then she is in front of him and suddenly he sees her as a person.

***

Secrets aren’t pleasant, Darcy decides, when you’re desperate to tell them. It never occurs to him to tell her the truth until she is there and they’re in the middle of that ridiculous conversation about what makes an accomplished woman. He knows what Caroline is doing and he knows he’ll watch the fall out on the videos tomorrow. Suddenly, Darcy is tired of playing a part. As he says his lines and sees the way Elizabeth Bennet judges him Darcy realizes he’s lonely.

***

When he finds her asleep by the pool he gives into a need that has followed him around since she came to Netherfield.

He looks at her. Truly looks at her. He knows it’s creepy to stand over a woman napping in the sun. He’s going to go in a moment. He just wants to see her without a filter, without playing a part. Her arms curve in a way that fascinates him; he wants to skim a finger along the line of her arm and thread his fingers through her’s. He wonders what it would be like to anchor himself to her in that way.

The pages of the book peek out from the crook of her elbow and he picks it up before he can think it through. Nothing startles him more than the fact that it’s _his_ book. Their book. He sinks into the chaise next to her and flips through the copy. It’s worn and dog-eared.

He smiles and then she wakes up and for a moment Darcy considers if this really is a story. He finds her with the book and she awakens, sun-kissed and slightly startled, at just the right moment. No one could have written it better.

“Oh good,” Darcy says, “now that you know too, we can finally talk.”

***

[Somewhere at sometime in someplace (right at this moment in fact) readers clutch their laptops closely. How can a story do this to us? Let’s hope no one ever finds the answer; mystery is good.]

***

To Darcy’s credit the one time he lied he didn’t know it was a lie for a long time.

_“Me either,”_ he says, _“I’m in charge of my own heart.”_

He feels uneasy when he says it. He knows better than to make such a bold statement, but he also doesn’t know what else to say. Then she asks him if he was going to propose to her earlier today by the pool and Darcy laughs. His laughter hurts his ribs, but it feels good to laugh. He needs it.

_“Oh god, Lizzie Bennet I wasn’t going to propose to you today. I barely know you.”_

**  
** It isn’t until later after they’ve returned to their respective bedrooms and Darcy is staring at the ceiling and the moonlight falls in stripes across his bed that he realizes that tonight was the first time he’s ever called her Lizzie.


	2. Chapter 2

Lizzie Bennet, in the flesh, is exasperating. Wit directed at you isn’t charming. On the page it leaps, quick and precise, but in person it renders Darcy into a red-faced, stammering fool. 

 

Even as a child no one would’ve described Darcy as playful so he’s woefully unprepared for Lizzie, who is quick to poke at him with a verbal stick whenever she can. He does land one jab of his own. It’s over dinner and he says the line about Lizzie having the most handsome pair of eyes he’s ever known. She chokes on her wine and he smiles into his own glass. 

 

“Dude, what was that tonight?” Bing says later over the pool table. Everyone else has gone to bed.

 

“What was what?” 

 

Bing raises a single eyebrow. Darcy pretends to ignore him in lieu of the game. His cue makes contact, but the hit isn’t placed right and he sinks the eight ball into the felt pocket with a  _ plop _ . Darcy exhales. 

 

“Handsome pair of eyes?” Bing laughs as he circles the table. He tips back his beer and Darcy gives a weak shrug. The other man grins, “Be glad I saw that and not Fitz. I’ll only hold it over your head for….maybe a year.” 

 

“Hold what exactly?” 

 

Bing ignores Darcy to take his shot and was rewarded with two of his balls landing in their intended pockets. He straightens up and reaches for the cube of cue chalk. 

 

“When it comes to Lizzie Bennet you’ve got no game, man.” 

 

*** 

 

Darcy doesn’t consider this a game; he’s entirely serious about finishing the story. He faithfully checks off the steps in the plot day by day. He wonders how long the Netherfield arc is going to take? In the book it’s a few days; in real life it takes weeks. All that time leaves him filling up the margins with his own observations. It makes him feel like a detective, and while these isn’t a case to be solved there is that damn question of  _ why?  _

 

What the novel - and Lizzie Bennet - don’t see are all the  _ other _ parts of Darcy’s life. In particular, no one see the 72 emails, 23 voice messages, and more texts worth counting that Darcy has sent to his sister since George Wickham. Not that it’d make any difference if anyone did know they existed because Gigi still won’t talk to him. 

 

William gets it. He’d been an asshole when he showed up at Gigi’s condo and discovered Wickham. If Gigi knew the whole story she’d think him an even bigger asshole than she already did. 

 

The first time Darcy read the book it was in the tortuous days after his parent’s funeral when everyone returned to their lives, but he and Gigi couldn’t because there was nothing to which to return. Before he opened the cover Darcy hadn’t a clue of the book’s significance and even when he stumbled upon the name Fitzwilliam Darcy he’d figured Anne must have found this quirky little novel in which a character shared her last name and been inspired to name her son and daughter William and Georgiana. 

 

It wasn’t until he came upon George Wickham’s name that Darcy felt a chill dance down his spine. George Wickham wasn’t Anne’s son. He was a long-time family friend, and Darcy’s childhood playmate. From the first mention of George until the terrible revelation about Wickham’s deviousness Darcy scarcely breathed, but once the book’s convoluted climax became apparent he exhaled in relief. 

 

The real George Wickham wasn’t a scoundrel let alone the antagonist in some yellow paged two -bit novel. If Darcy even began to entertain the idea the book was real in some way George Wickham was his evidence it couldn’t be true. George would never do anything to hurt Gigi. George Wickham might be a disappointment - vain and lazy - but even as the two childhood friends drifted apart, Darcy held firm to his faith in George Wickham. George wouldn’t betray the people he claimed as his family. Only selfish men like Darcy’s father did that. 

 

Then Darcy discovered George in his baby sister’s living room wearing nothing but a towel and a cheeky grin. 

 

_ It was true _ . 

 

All of it - his parent’s deaths, Gigi’s tears, his own loneliness - all of it was some sort of prelude, backstory really, to a story that hadn’t even begun yet. 

 

_ That was fucked up.  _

 

In that terrible moment Darcy felt as if he were floating, as if there was suddenly less gravity on earth or at least less for him. He was buoyant, but it wasn’t a pleasant feeling. It wasn’t freeing as if he were suddenly unburdened. Rather, Darcy felt the earth tilt under him. He was having a panic attack, but at the time it felt bigger than that. 

 

And George just stood there wrapped in one of Gigi’s towels. Darcy noticed her initials monogrammed in silver thread along the bottom of the towel. It was wrapped around George like a vine clinging to a wall and in that moment Darcy hated George not for sleeping with his sister, but for confirming the book to be true. He hated George because if the book was true that meant the story of William Darcy hadn’t begun yet, and that broke his heart. 

 

That night, when he pulled his checkbook out, Darcy knew exactly what would come next. George would fail any and every test of honor because that is what George of the novel did. So Darcy did too. He played his role perfectly in the breaking of Gigi’s heart. He did it because it was the only way to advance the story, and if Darcy learned anything on his literary sleuthing is that you’ve got to get to the end of the story before you learn the  _ why _ ? 

 

So it’s a good thing the novel and Lizzie don’t see those phone calls and emails. It’s good they consider him a character, the romantic hero. If Lizzie so thoroughly dislikes character William Darcy then she’d hate the real one. 

 

***

 

“If the book comes true the universe wouldn’t collapse,” Lizzie says one morning as she plucks grass next to her knee. 

 

She’s sprawled out on the ground while Darcy paces. He doesn’t have reason to pace except he can’t bring himself to just plop down like Lizzie is. They’ve stolen away to a corner of the garden where jasmine grows, and it’s become their spot. Darcy rubs a palm over the back of his neck. 

 

They have a spot. When did that happen? 

 

Lizzie continues, “Everyone would just go about their lives without ever realizing.” 

 

Darcy stops pacing. “Why do you even need me here if you’re just going to argue with yourself the whole time?” 

 

She gives him a withering look and flicks at the grass with her fingers. “You don’t get it.”

 

“Get what?” 

 

“If the book came true the only people affected would be me and you. The consequences would fall entirely on us.” 

 

_ Tell her,  _ his mind counters, but Darcy says nothing. He pushes voice - one that grows more strident every day - down. He focuses on pacing. Pacing he can do. 

 

In his periphery, Lizzie gives a dramatic flop backwards into the grass. Her skirt slides up to expose a length of leg and Darcy ducks his chin. He thinks of that day by the pool, the sight of her there asleep, content, and then the way his heart thumped harder when he saw the book, and finally that rush of relief when he realized he wasn’t alone anymore. 

 

It’s her. She’s why he can’t sit still or finish a meal or sleep through the night. She’s why he paces. It’s not just her as she is now in front of him:  stretched out on the ground like a preening cat, slightly indignant, smart-as-a-whip, and exasperating. It’s also that she’s Elizabeth Bennet. He has access to her that hasn’t been earned. True intimacy requires allowance and Lizzie Bennet hadn’t allowed him anything besides her deep desire to never fall in love with him. If you took the book away it’s the only part of herself that she’s given freely. 

 

_ And what have you offered? It’s not like you’re an open book either _ , the voice in his head points out. There’s a sass to the voice that Darcy recognizes. 

 

It’s the narrator of the novel. It’s Jane Austen. 

 

_ You already love her,  _ Jane pointed out when Lizzie rolled her eyes at Caroline’s back last night during dinner.  _ Do yourself a favor and admit it to you and me. I won’t judge. I mean, I did write it.  _

 

Then this morning as he reviewed the next box he needed to check off in the plot, Jane popped up again with  _ how is knowing why going to change anything?  _

 

The one that wakes him up at night is the worst:   _ what if why is the wrong question?  _

 

While Lizzie frets about free will Darcy worries if he’s literally going mad. Maybe he should have Lizzie commit him? It’s one thing to discover you’re a character in a book. It’s another thing to personify a voice in your own mind as a dead, obscure 19th century author who may or may not have invented you, right? 

 

That would be a step too far. 

 

Doing that sounds as crazy as falling in love with a woman from a book. Almost. 

 

***

Episode 60 changes everything. 

 

Going into it Lizzie is mad at him - furious, really. At Netherfield he convinced her to follow through with the story so they break up Jane and Bing. He needs them to finish the story. 

 

_ “Why do we have to break their hearts? Why can’t they just stay together?” Lizzie sputtered. _

_ “Because if Bing doesn’t go then you don’t have a reason to hate me.” _

_ “I don’t hate you.” _

_ “You need a reason because otherwise when I confess my feelings to you, why wouldn’t you just reciprocate them?” _

_ “Because I have a brain. Just because I don’t hate you doesn’t mean I have to love you. A declaration of love doesn’t obligate a woman.” _

 

Then Darcy watches Jane cry over snickerdoodles and he feels like an eel. When the video is finished he pulls Gigi’s name up on his phone and exhales as it rings. He gets her voicemail just like he has for months, but he tries one more time. 

 

_ “Gigi, I need you...I need you to listen to me. Hate me. Blame me. I don’t care. Just please talk to me. I know I don’t have the right to make demands, but I need you. I’m your brother; you’re my only family. None of it makes a fucking difference if you’re not in my life.”  _

 

Gigi doesn’t call him back by the time he enters Lizzie’s office to pretend to declare his love for Lizzie. 

 

_ “You are the last man in the world I could ever fall in love with.”  _

 

She’s been saying it for months now. She can’t fall in love with him. She won’t. 

 

But sitting there hearing it shouted at him, knowing that it’ll go up online for everyone to watch and rewatch, in that moment Darcy  _ feels  _ her rejection. 

 

She’s right. She can’t, won’t, fall in love with him, but that has nothing to do with him falling in love with her. 

 

_ That’s exactly how I wrote it,  _ Jane Austen sings,  _ you always fall first.  _

 

Darcy gets the next sentence out, but he’s not sure to whom he’s actually confessing. 

 

_ “I’m sorry to have caused you so much pain,” he says, “I should have acted differently. I was unaware of your feelings toward me.” _

 

Episode 60 is the first time Darcy considers that  _ why  _ might not be enough. 

 

It might not make a fucking difference if she’s not in his life. 

 

*** 

 

It’s strange to realize you’ve fallen in love with a woman who is adamant about the single fact: she can never love you. It’s stranger still to walk away from her in the moment you finally admit to yourself (and Jane Austen) that yes, the thing that was written happened despite every effort to stave it off.

 

After Episode 60, he watches her videos. He watches their plans to keep Lydia away from George fail. Darcy knew that would happen. His sister wasn’t spared so he knew whatever forces hold this whole mess - the book, him, and Lizzie - together would do the same to Lydia. 

 

_ No love story can be worth this,  _ Darcy tells Jane Austen. 

 

He’s at his family’s cabin. His secretary arranged for it to be decorated for the holidays, but he’s there alone. Usually Gigi is there with him and they make it work, their little family, but she hasn’t shown up and Darcy is afraid to call her and beg. 

 

_ Who said it’s a love story? _ , Jane counters. 

 

_ If it’s not a love story then what the hell did you write?  _

 

But Jane doesn’t answer. Instead, she needles him for pouting.  __

 

_ Call your sister. Tell her about Lizzie. And stop staring morosely into that fireplace. Your soul is not tortured; your problems are entirely solvable. You’re not Heathcliff. I wrote you better than that.  _

 

***

 

In the end, it’s Lizzie Bennet that heals the distance between brother and sister. 

 

Darcy calls Gigi and tells her everything - minus the whole I-exist-because-of-a-book thing - over sixteen long voicemails. He tells her about the Gibson wedding and Bing and Jane and most of all he tells her about Lizzie and how he made an utter ass of himself. 

 

“I’m in love with her and I don’t know what to do,” Darcy ends the last message. 

 

He doesn’t ask anything of Gigi; he really just needed to tell her because when your life alters in such a way so that there was Before Lizzie and now After Lizzie, you want to tell your Very Important People. And Gigi is Darcy’s Most Important Person. So he tells her over sixteen maxed out voicemails and pours himself a drink. 

 

_ I’m proud of you _ , Jane Austen says. Darcy can hear the smile in her voice. 

 

_ I thought we were trying to dampen down the pride stuff a bit.  _ He says aloud, but Jane doesn’t get further because Darcy’s cellphone rings and it’s Gigi. 

 

“Hey,” Darcy says. 

 

“So tell me more about this girl,” Gigi is breathless. She’s always breathless, always ready to go no matter what life throws at her. 

  
“I’m going to do you one better,” Darcy says, “I’m going to send you a link. 


End file.
